If you could talk to the game's developers...

[ADarkJedi44]

we can beg..but I will accomplish nothing

[carrickr]

What if we prove that there is a market for the game and therefore them making it means more $$ for LucasArts?

[Evaders99]

You cannot prove there's a market for it... because there isn't. Rebellion was a flop in terms of sales. No way would they invest the time and the money to release something that isn't going to sell.

[Texas_Fett]

What if we prove that there is a market for the game and therefore them making it means more $$ for LucasArts?

carrickr has a point. However, the biggest hurdle is that we're just a handlful of Star Wars fans. That won't get anywhere with Lucasarts. We can't count on Lucasarts ever picking up on the title themselves. We can't legally hack the code ourselves. The previous developers don't have the ability to shed light on the code for us.

 

So here's what we need to do:

 

1) Start and online petition, perhaps at petitiononline.com, stating that the undersigned are fans of the Star Wars universe and/or Rebellion, and that consideration should be given to creating a sequel to Rebellion. Indicate that a good portion of the undresigned WILL buy the game, should it be released. We should probably get a lawyer or at least a para-legal to write it up for us.

 

2) Contact each registered member of this site, directing them to the petition. Even if we assume only 50% of the members have current addresses, that's well over 1300 signatures.

 

3) Contact theforce.net. Get them to post a story and link to the petition on the main page as a 'sticky', asking for the support of the Star Wars community at large. They may not all have liked Rebellion, but they're Star Wars fans, darn it, and they'll support us if they can. Those that don't...well, we all know they're pathetic virgin loners still living in their parent's basement, lacking any real social life or redeeming personality traits, right?

 

4) Contact a gaming company, perferably a small one (more willing to talk to us and take a chance on landing a SW title) or one that has had dealings with Lucasarts in the past (since that business rapport is hopefully still there). Present them with the petition, IN PERSON, giving clear evidence that they stand a good chance of profiting from this endeavor. Convince them to contact Lucasarts on a professional, business-to-business level to open negotiations for the project.

 

5) Offer the modding ideas and results of this site as reference to the company, and appoint a contact person to act as a consultant between the company's development team and the Rebellion community.

 

6) Wait the obligatory 1-3 years for development.

 

7) Purchase the game the first day it's released, shocking the bejeezus out of the snooty gaming community that looked down it's collective nose at Rebellion to begin with.

 

Gloat.

 

9) Enjoy Star Wars Rebellion modding nirvana.

 

This may work even better if we contact more than one company at a time, creating a sense of competition between companies. Also, we'll probably get refused by a few of 'em, so having a backup would be prudent.

[carrickr]

For a gaming company we could possibly talk to Golem Labs. They are a small company still on their second game, but their first game (Superpower or Global Power for you Europeans) was an excellent demonstration of their ability. Plus you can train their AI to be a very excellent player. Superpower was basically a game where you pick one of the countries in the world and try to take over the world with it (you can do other stuff like sign treaties, but why bother? Just kill kill kill!). So they clearly have an interest in indepth strategy games. Also they fully support their dedicated modding community. While they haven't released their source code yet, they will look over code for mods and tweak it as a favor. Finally they are a small company looking for new games so they might actively support our efforts if they decide they like the project.

 

Finally I'd like to point out stuff like Alpha Centauri, Civ, etc have all done well, but only after a lot of money was sunk into production. Looking Rebellion you can see it was crafted with love but limited resources. I feel that Rebellion 2, espcially a highly modular game, would do well. Then other non Star Wars fan could buy the game and mod it what they wanted it to be. Bablyon 5 Mods, Star Trek Mods, Star Gate Mods, pretty much any type of space based empire building game could easily be created off the engine.